Alibaba’s Jack Ma Announces Succession Plan, To Pass Baton To CEO Daniel Zhang Next Year

Alibaba Group Holding Ltd’s founder and executive chairman Jack Ma has announced his intention of stepping down in a year’s time with Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Daniel Zhang in line to succeed him. Ma’s retirement from Asia’s most valuable company is expected to coincide with his 55th birthday.

Ma, a former English teacher, started the company in 1999 out of his apartment and has since driven the company to a dominant position in the e-commerce sphere in China. Further, the company has a strong overseas presence in markets from South East Asia to Russia and has in recent years ventured into diverse areas such as cloud computing, digital payments and movie production among others.

The extent of Alibaba’s rise can be gauged from its market value which is said to be in the range of $420 billion, double the price at the time of its record IPO offering in 2014.

It is reported that post retirement the Alibaba founder would focus on work at his foundation which is expected to work on issues relating to the sphere of education and also handle his philanthropic activities.